It is well known for air conditioners, such as room air conditioners and split/system air conditioners, to have a compressor mounted to a supporting surface. Such surface is typically a horizontal surface in a section of the air conditioner commonly referred to as the "outdoor section" or the "condensing section".
Since most compressors produce a fair amount of noise and vibration, it is considered desirable to provide a mounting structure for the compressor which serves to isolate the compressor from the supporting structure. Such mounting structure must also be structurally capable of reacting forces caused by adverse handling of the air conditioner unit, such forces include lateral, vertical and torsional forces which might be caused by dropping the unit or mishandling the unit in shipping.
A well known manner of dealing with such forces is to mount the compressor by way of a mounting plate attached to the compressor. The mounting plate in turn is isolated through rubber grommets which are received in mounting studs provided in the mounting structure. Various types of compressors are adapted for use in such air conditioners, for example, rotary compressors and reciprocating compressors may be used satisfactorily in the same air conditioning unit. Such compressors are of different sized and therefore require mounting plates and associated mounting structure to accommodate the different sized compressors.
It is deemed desirable to provided a mounting structure in the basepan of an air conditioner which is adapted to readily receive mounting structure for more than one size compressor while providing adequate support for the compressor during normal operation and during shipping.